D. Gardner

The snow is making keeping Fat. Maybe that’s the real reason I hate the snow.
I have lived in Salt Lake City a few times and mentally the winter crushes my will.
I get up ready to work out then I realize I am going to have to shovel the driveway and scrape the car windows, before I can get to the gym.

So the next day I wake up remember it’s winter outside and the though of the cold destroys my will, I pull up the covers and close my eyes.

Some days I realize it’s cold, but luckily not freezing, the roads are dry and I think I’ll ride my bike to work. I get ready go outside and the small flakes falling might as well be softball size hail to my soul. Again the cold bears down and breaks my spirit. I get in my car and drive to work.

Why am I still finding out things I shouldn’t do.  I experimented this week and last with trying to take the shuttle to St. George during the work day.  Both times I ended up going to bed late and exhausted.

Note to self.  Don’t travel during the work day and expect to get a full days work done.

That said I am going to bed.

I have started the post several times over the past couple of months. I have just never got around to getting it finished, mostly because I am not sure what to say.

Life has been pretty depressing for me, over the past bit of time. I think mostly because I want things that I don’t have.

A few days ago I read this quote from Heber C Kimball, given in a speech he gave in April 1854 “When a person is miserable, wretched, and unhappy in himself, put him in what circumstances you please, and he is wretched still.” I feel the wretch.

I realized after reading that most of my life I have considered myself happy and content with things. However, I think I have been fooling myself. There alway seems to be something that was keeping me from being completely happy and fulfilled.

Elder Kimball continues. “If a person is poor, and composes his mind, and calmly submits to the providences of God, he will feel cheerful and happy in all circumstances, if he continues to keep the commandments of God.”

I realize this is what I need to try to do.  I need to be calm, submit to the God, and be happy with what ever he see’s fit to provide.

I guess I have done enough right in my life to be given some really wonderful things.   A great wife, wonderful kids, we’ve always had the necessities of life, we live in the greatest country of all time and we get to enjoy luxuries that kings even 100 years ago could never dreamed possible.  Things like cell phones, washing machines, cheap hot running water,  Television, dish washers, microwaves, cheep accesible good food and the list of luxuries goes on an on and on.

Here I am, in the mist of all this, being depressed. I am the wretch.

Hopefully I will be able to cast of the wretched and find the happiness that is so easily available to all.

Slowly I will learn to be composed and calmly submit to providence.

That is my hope during this cold winter of opulence.

This past week Roman Emerson and I traveled to Utah. We stopped in Flagstaff to hang out with a friend of mine Mike Wilson. He works for the Grand Canyon in the IT department. We visited a bunch of Native American ruins around flag staff. That was pretty cool. I was surprised at how many buildings there were that were still standing that were built by Native Americans. All of these were, of course, built from stone.
Then we visited the Grand Canyon, that is quite amazing. Now that I have seen down into it I want to hike down to the river. It was fun to take my boys and have them experience it also.

We hiked a bit, maybe a 1/2 mile on the bright angle trail. On the way down Mike Wilson ran into one of the head scientists and a colleague that were on their way out. They had been down checking air quality in the Canyon. Wow what a cool job, being able to hike into the Grand Canyon as part of your job.

Mike also told us about the cookies at Jacob lake, which we tried out, on our way to Saint George.

As we left Flagstaff on Wednesday morning it was 57 degrees Fahrenheit and about 110 when we pulled into St. George. It’s nice to feel the cold once and a while but I do prefer the heat.